Adding literal text to a query

[Laphan]

Hi All

This is probably very simple, but I just don't know the answer to it.

What I want to do is select 50 chars of a field and then put '...' at the
end of this selection, eg:

SELECT LEFT(DESC,50) + '...' FROM MyTable

The above doesn't work, but there must be some form of MySQL syntax that
lets me do this - right?

Thanks

Laphan

[Bill Karwin]

Laphan wrote:

What I want to do is select 50 chars of a field and then put '...' at the
end of this selection, eg:

SELECT LEFT(DESC,50) + '...' FROM MyTable

The + operator is used for string concatenation in Microsoft SQL Server
and some other products.

In MySQL, the way to do what you want is:

SELECT CONCAT(LEFT(DESC,50), '...') FROM MyTable

See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/String_functions.html for more
information.

Regards,
Bill K.

[Astra]

Many thanks Bill

Much appreciated.

"Bill Karwin" <bi**@karwin.com> wrote in message
news:cd*********@enews4.newsguy.com...
Laphan wrote:

What I want to do is select 50 chars of a field and then put '...' at the
end of this selection, eg:

SELECT LEFT(DESC,50) + '...' FROM MyTable

The + operator is used for string concatenation in Microsoft SQL Server
and some other products.

In MySQL, the way to do what you want is:

SELECT CONCAT(LEFT(DESC,50), '...') FROM MyTable

See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/String_functions.html for more
information.

Regards,
Bill K.